Fans are saying Marvel's 'best ever' ending to a movie shows how far the MCU has fallen

Marvel fans are pointing out how the MCU has changed over the years by sharing a clip of the franchise's 'best' ending.

It's been 15 years since Iron Man kicked off Phase 1 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008, and we've come a long, long way since then. Not only have the visual effects gotten a lot better, but the stories have become bigger and the stars, somehow, have got more ripped.

But before the Multiverse of Madness and Quantumania, there was Captain America: The First Avenger. Remind yourself of how that movie ended below:

Let's take a trip back to 2011, when Instagram was still a relatively new creation and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was still finding its feet.

The world was introduced to Chris Evans as Steve Rogers; a wannabe soldier who undergoes a procedure which turns him into Captain America.

The end of Captain America: The First Avenger sees Rogers wake up in what looks to be a 1940s hospital room, but he quickly becomes aware that there's something weird going on when a baseball game he attended in person is supposedly playing out live on the radio.

After smashing his way through a wall and escaping into modern-day New York City, he learns he's been asleep for 70 years, leaving him gutted at the realisation that he's missed a date with the love of his life, Peggy Carter.

Marvel Studios

Captain America goes on to do some pretty big things, including taking on the mysterious Winter Soldier and helping save the world from Thanos, but it's the scene at the end of his first time that has stuck with fans through it all.

Sharing the clip on Twitter recently, one fan described it as 'maybe [their] favorite ending to an MCU film' while another said the film was 'easily one of the best MCU films and it’s not talked about enough'.

After the clip started to do the rounds online, fans began to use it as an example of how the MCU has changed - or even got worse - over the years.

"remember when the mcu made movies?," one person asked, while another responded: "I miss the relative realism of the early days of the MCU. Everything wasn’t an obvious green screen — and the stakes were very much human."

@Capsicle1949/Twitter

A third wrote: "This is why I won’t accept the quality and storytelling of MCU movies and series now. They mixed the tone of comedy but still having emotional depth in the Infinity Saga. It wasn’t just all feel-good CGI superhero. You had to appreciate the earlier films and connections to get it."

Other viewers described The First Avenger as 'real cinema', while one said there needs to be 'more MCU like this'.

The most recent instalment of the MCU, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, arrived this month to mixed reviews, receiving 48 percent on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer against a more positive Audience Score of 83 percent.